In the year of 1642, a young mother named Hester Prynne is accused as guilty for committing adultery - her evidence is quite clear, as she holds the young infant offspring Pearl, in her arms. Hester’s husband had gone missing, presumed dead, and for over a year even. Hester’s punishment is ignominy to the scaffold for three hours, and the remainder of her life to be scarred upon her bosom with a magnificently sin-soaked letter A, darned with golden twine. Upon the scaffold, Hester see’s her husband who assumes the name of Roger Chillingworth. When they finally meet in private, the two apologize for their respective sins – Hester, for her adultery, and Chillingworth, for his long absence, especially as well as marrying such a young and vital woman at his age. He was previously assumed to be dead, as to why no one knows for certain who he is, except for Hester. That concludes to half as much why Chillingworth promises never to reveal his true identity - Mr. Prynne. After Hester’s shaming, the officials decide to let her go and allow her to start a business as a seamstress – Hester’s strongest skill, despite the continual verbal disgrace and ignominy by the townspeople and her neighbors. In the meanwhile, Pearl blooms into a lovely flower honing the characteristics of a little elf, and mannerisms that lead Hester to worry she might be some sort of devilish sprite. During delivery of a glove shipment to the Governor’s house, Hester has an importantly revealing conversation with the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, who is a young, sickly minister who prods Hester to confess the real name of Pearl’s father. This happens during her interrogation at the scaffold. Later, its revealed that Dimmesdale actually is the father, and at this time only Hester knows. Even Pearl speaks to her father unaware of his identity. In the heat of this all, Hester also bears the criticism of not being a good role model for Pearl. Chillingworth ends up boarding with Dimmesdale as an in-house physician, a pretense of being the minister’s doctor, however, in fact, Chillingworth scavenges to seek out Pearl’s father and has reason to suspect Dimmesdale might be the one. There is a time when Dimmesdale falls asleep in his chair that Chillingworth goes to open his shirt to reveal an “A” carved into his chest that the Reverend had been hiding from him. Although the narrator doesn’t say so, the minister had been carving that A in his chest, also making him an adulterer. Chillingworth sees the wound but decides not to heal it. Despite unknowing what Chillingworth found, Dimmesdale begins to feel quite uncomfortable around the doctor and quickly grows to hate him. He tells Hester, but due to her oath, she cannot reveal Chillingworth’s identity. It’s been years since her public shaming and her beauty has only grown less in spite of the letter A, a parasite to her great vitality. Instead of Chillingworth proceeding revenge on Dimmesdale, she instead wishes it for herself, for, she al...
